Major Chinese oil firms have prepared evacuation plans in case spreading violence in Iraq -- a key energy provider to the Asian giant -- threatens their operations, state media reported Thursday.
China has more than 10,000 workers on a wide range of projects in the Middle Eastern country, officials say, although most are in the south, far from the current fighting.
Militants from the jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have captured vast amounts of territory in a lightning offensive that is entering its second week.
"As of today, most Chinese workers have gone to work as usual. But if insurgents begin to attack Baghdad, we will pull out of the country immediately,'' an employee of Chinese state-owned energy giant China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) told the Global Times newspaper.
Resources are a key interest for China, the world's second-largest economy, and Iraq is its fifth-largest source of crude oil imports, while China is the largest foreign investor in Iraq's oil sector.
Production at the four oil fields of PetroChina, the listed arm of China's largest oil producer China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), has not been affected, a company representative told the paper. --AFP